They need Our help.

It's impossible to imagine what the people of coastal Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama are going through. Their homes obliterated. Their belongings washed and/or blown out of existence. Family and friends killed or missing. They've gone days without water, food, electricity, or air conditioning. Thousands of refugees migrated to a Superdome shelter only to be shuttled to the Astrodome after the first fell victim to the rising waters and raging winds. Some families have lived in these southern towns and cities for generations, only to have everything destroyed. The liquid they walk through is a mix of water, sewage, gasoline, and death. There is no food left to even loot. 30,000 National Guard troops are being sent in. Why it took this long to have them sent in is part poor planning by the federal government (there was at least two to three days of warnings before this storm made land fall) and part because of the use and overuse of the National Guard as an occupying force in bush's War in Iraq. But now is not the time for that discussion.

These refugees need our help. Their lives, homes, livelihoods, and communities have been taken by Hurricane Katrina. It's going to be a long, long time before the million plus refugees of the gulf coast will be able to get their "life back in order" as the president optimistically put it Wednesday afternoon. Right now you can help by donating your money or your time to the Red Cross.

I'm not a religious person, but there is a candle wrapped in Mardi Gras beads lit in Hoboken in remembrance of one of my favorite cities in the world.



Update: There were and are plenty of National Guard in this Country to have brought aid and order to New Orleans and the rest of the Gulf Regions of Lousiana and Mississippi, they were just waiting for orders.